Boston Police Department have tweeted the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect is in custody.

The tweets confirmed media reports coming out of the Boston area. The suspect was cornered in a boat in a backyard in the Watertown, Mass. area and was surrounded by police.

Boston Police Department tweets include;

"CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."

"In our time of rejoicing, let us not forget the families of Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell and Officer Sean Collier."

Police officers are sweeping the area for any possible explosive devices.

The Boston Globe and other media reported earlier that the suspect was cornered by police in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Mass.

A press conference has been scheduled in Boston for later this evening.

••••

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) -- A round of blasts has been heard in Watertown, Mass., amid the search for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Media reports out of the U.S. state police have cornered the suspect in a boat in a backyard in Watertown. A large police presence is in the area, the boat area has been lit up and officers have been heard yelling at the person suposedly inside the boat.

Emergency and military vehicles sped through town after an earlier burst of gunfire.

State police spokesman David Procopio says there is "renewed activity in Watertown" is connected to the search for 19-year-old college student Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (JOH'-kahr tsahr-NY'-ev).

Authorities are telling residents of the area to stay indoors.

The burst of activity came at the end of a tense day in and around Boston, and less than an hour after police announced that they were scaling back the hunt because they had come up empty-handed following an all-day search that sent thousands of SWAT team officers into the streets and paralyzed the metropolitan area.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Gunfire erupted Friday night amid the manhunt for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, and police in armored vehicles and tactical gear rushed into the Watertown neighborhood in a possible break in the case.

The burst of activity came at the end of a tense day in and around Boston, and less than an hour after police announced that they were scaling back the hunt because they had come up empty-handed following an all-day search that sent thousands of SWAT team officers into the streets and paralyzed the metropolitan area.

A state police spokesman said the activity was related to the search for 19-year-old college student Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Before the gunfire, State Police Col. Timothy Alben said at a news conference that he believed Tsarnaev was still in Massachusetts because of his ties to the area. But authorities lifted the stay-indoors warning for people in the Boston area, and the transit system started running again by evening.

"We can't continue to lockdown an entire city or an entire state," Alben said. At the same time, he and other authorities warned that Tsarnaev is a killer and that people should be vigilant.

Tsarnaev fled on foot after a furious overnight gun battle that left 200 spent rounds behind and after a wild car chase in which he and his brother hurled explosives at police, authorities said. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in the shootout, run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay wounded, according to investigators.

During the overnight spasm of violence, the brothers also shot and killed an MIT policeman and severely wounded another officer, authorities said.

Law enforcement officials and family members identified the brothers as ethnic Chechens who came to the U.S. from Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said.

Around midday, as the manhunt dragged on, the suspects' uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., pleaded on television: "Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness."

The search by thousands of law enforcement officers all but paralyzed the Boston area for much of the day. Officials shut down all mass transit, including Amtrak trains to New York, advised businesses not to open, and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay inside and unlock their doors only for uniformed police.

"We believe this man to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people."

Some neighborhoods resembled a military encampment, with officers patrolling with guns drawn and aimed, residents peering nervously from windows and people near surrounded buildings spirited away.

The bloody turn in the case came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of two suspects in the bombing and asked for the public's help in identifying and catching them.

Authorities said the man dubbed Suspect No. 1 - the one in sunglasses and a dark baseball cap in the surveillance-camera pictures - was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, while Suspect No. 2, the one in a white baseball cap worn backward, was his brother.

The bombings on Monday near the Boston Marathon finish line killed three people and wounded more than 180, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and sparking fears across the nation that another terrorist attack had come to U.S. soil.

Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.

But investigators have shed no light on the motive for the Boston Marathon bombing and said it was unclear whether any terrorist organizations had a hand in it.

The FBI was swamped with tips after the release of the photos - 300,000 every minute by one estimate - but what role those played in the overnight clash was unclear. State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt.

Exactly how the long night of crime began was marked by conflicting reports. But police said the brothers carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston, then released him unharmed at a gas station.

They also shot to death a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to a report of a disturbance, investigators said.

The search for the Mercedes led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer, 33-year-old Richard Donohue, was shot and critically wounded, authorities said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev somehow slipped away. He ran over his already wounded brother as he fled by car, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at a Boston hospital after suffering what doctors said were multiple gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury.

The brothers had built an arsenal of pipe bombs, grenades and improvised explosive devices and used some of the weapons in trying to make their getaway, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Another uncle, Alvi Tsarnaev, who also lives in Montgomery Village, Md., told news organizations that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had called him Thursday night - hours before his firefight with police - and the two spoke for the first time in two or three years. He said the young man asked for forgiveness for the rift in the family.

"He said, `I love you and forgive me,'" the uncle said.

Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded "like it was right next to my head ... and shook the whole house." She said she was looking at the front door when a bullet came through the side paneling. SWAT team officers were running all over her yard, she said.

"It was very scary," she said. "There are two bullet holes in the side of my house, and by the front door there is another."

Christine Yajko said she heard two loud explosions and gunfire. She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.

"It was on the street, right near our kitchen window," she said.

Tsarni, the men's uncle, said the brothers traveled here together from Russia. He called his nephews "losers" and said they had struggled to settle in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating everyone."

U.S. government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk about an investigation in progress, said Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia last year and returned to the U.S. six months later.

His last known address was in Cambridge, Mass. He had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Students said he lived in a dorm there and was on campus this week after the Boston Marathon bombing. The campus closed down Friday along with colleges around the Boston area.

The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had awarded a $2,500 scholarship to him. At the time, he was a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing.

The men's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with AP from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is "a true angel." He said his son was studying medicine.

"He is such an intelligent boy," the father said. "We expected him to come on holidays here."

According to the FBI, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two explosions at the marathon finish line.

Insurgents from Chechnya and neighboring restive provinces in the Caucasus have long been involved in terrorist attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.

In 2002, Chechen militants took 800 people hostage in Moscow and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 captors. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from the effects of the gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan and took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.

••••

(Earlier story)

WASHINGTON (CP) — Americans were on the edge of their seats Friday as heavily armed police swarmed the streets of Boston and its suburbs on the hunt for one of two Russian-born Chechen brothers suspected in the bloody Boston Marathon bombings.

The developments transfixed a nation in the midst of a dreadful week as they watched the unprecedented spectacle of a beloved, bustling American city locked down and at a standstill amid a high-profile dragnet.

In overnight dramatics that seemed lifted from a Hollywood action movie, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly killed a security guard at a downtown university, hurled explosives at police during a rollicking car chase into the Boston suburbs and then engaged in a gun battle that left one of them dead and the other at large.

Among the explosives tossed at police during the firefight was another pressure cooker bomb of the type used in the marathon blast, CBS News reported on Friday. The lid apparently was jarred loose from the pressure cooker as it was thrown, preventing what could have been a devastating detonation.

The city and its suburbs were completely locked down by Friday morning as police continued to pursue 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after 26-year-old Tamerlan died in a hail of gunfire while reportedly challenging police in suburban Watertown.

“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Ed Davis, the Boston police commissioner. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”

Details about the two brothers, who immigrated to the U.S. about a decade ago, emerged at a fast and furious pace as family members and associates spoke openly to news media while social media disclosed a treasure trove of personal details.

An array of relatives, including their Toronto aunt, came forward to either fiercely defend the brothers or bitterly condemn them.

An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, was asked outside his Maryland home what would have provoked his nephews. “Being losers,” he replied angrily.

“Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in, ask forgiveness from these people,” Tsarni said to news cameras congregated on his driveway. “You brought shame on our family, the entire Chechnya people. You put this shame on our entire ethnicity.”

The brothers’ father — Anzor Tsarnaev, now in Russia — also urged his surviving son to give himself up, but warned the U.S. that “all hell will break loose” if he’s killed.

He told ABC News he spoke to his sons earlier this week, after the blasts at the famed Boston Marathon killed three people and injured more than 160.

“We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them,” Anzor Tsarnaev said from Russia. He said his sons reassured him, saying: “Everything is good, Daddy. Everything is very good.”

He added: “If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame. Someone, some organization is out to get them.”

Their New Jersey sister, meantime, said she was shocked.

“They were great people. I never would have expected it,” Alina Tsarnaev told the New Jersey Star-Ledger outside her home. “They are smart — I don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

The brothers were from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya in southern Russia, and initial reports suggest they were adrift after their parents returned to Russia.

Tamerlan, a boxer, was the subject of a photo essay entitled “Will Box For Passport” taken before he competed at the National Golden Gloves competition in Salt Lake City in 2010.

“I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them,” he said, according to the caption on one of the photos.

Chechens are Russians by citizenship but not by nationality. Famously tough fighters, they complain that Russians frequently discriminate against them.

Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994. The conflicts kicked off an Islamic insurgency in the region.

On his page on Vkontatke — the Russian-language equivalent of Facebook — Dzhokar Tsarnaev tells a joke.

“A car is driving down a street. In it are a Chechen, an Ingush and a Dagestani. Question: Who’s behind the wheel? Answer: a cop.”

By most accounts, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, an avid wrestler, was more popular than his older brother and had a network of friends. He was a student on the University of Massachusetts’ Dartmouth campus, and had a dorm room there.

Two students told CBS News that they’d seen Dzhokar Tsarnaev on campus this week. The school was evacuated on Friday as police descended upon the campus to scour his dorm room.

By noon on Friday, a sea of law enforcement officers had also surrounded the Cambridge, Mass., home where the brothers grew up and where Tamerlan still resided. Police said they feared it could be booby-trapped with explosives and were preparing to conduct a controlled explosion.

Subways and buses were shut down while Amtrak service to Boston was halted. Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emerson University were all closed and students were told to stay inside.

Major-league baseball and hockey games were cancelled.

Tips about the identity of the brothers began pouring into the FBI soon after the agency released their images publicly, officials said.

Within hours, authorities say the Tsarnaev brothers had gunned down MIT police officer Sean Collier, 26, as he sat in his cruiser at 10:20 p.m. Collier had not drawn his weapon.

The brothers then hijacked a Mercedes SUV, holding the driver captive for a half-hour while they reportedly tried to use his cash card to get money from three bank machines. They managed to withdraw $800 at one ATM.

The man was released unharmed at a gas station in Cambridge, sources said. As the suspects sped in his car toward Watertown, police gave chase as explosive devices were tossed at them out the window.

•••

BOSTON (AP)— Key moments related to the search for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, based on reports from the Middlesex County district attorney, Massachusetts State Police and Boston police.

— At 5:10 p.m. Thursday, investigators of the bombings release photographs and video of two suspects. They ask for the public’s help in identifying the men.

— Around 10:20 p.m., shots are fired on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, just outside Boston.

— At 10:30 p.m., an MIT campus police officer who was responding to a disturbance is found shot multiple times in his vehicle, apparently in a confrontation with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. He is later pronounced dead.

— Shortly afterward, two armed men reportedly carjack a Mercedes SUV in Cambridge. A man who was in the vehicle is held for about a half hour and then released unharmed at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

— Police soon pursue the carjacked vehicle in Watertown, just west of Cambridge.

— Some kind of explosive devices are thrown from the vehicle in an apparent attempt to stop police. The carjackers and police exchange gunfire. A transit police officer is seriously injured. One suspect, later identified as Suspect No. 1 in the marathon bombings, is critically injured and later pronounced dead.

— Authorities launch a manhunt for the other suspect.

— Around 1 a.m. Friday, gunshots and explosions are heard in Watertown. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents converge on a Watertown neighbourhood. A helicopter circles overhead.

— Around 4:30 a.m., Massachusetts state and Boston police tell people living in that section of eastern Watertown to stay in their homes. They identify the carjackers as the same men suspected in the marathon bombings. Overnight, police also release a photograph of a man believed to be Suspect No. 2 wearing a grey hoodie-style sweatshirt. The image apparently was taken from surveillance video at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Cambridge. Authorities initially say the suspects robbed the store but later say they did not.

— Around 6:35 a.m., The Associated Press reports that the bomb suspects are from a Russian region near Chechnya and lived in the United States for at least a year.

— Around 6:45 a.m., The Associated Press identifies the surviving Boston bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, who has been living in Cambridge.

— Around 8 a.m., Boston’s police commissioner says all of Boston must stay in their homes as the search for the surviving suspect in the bombings continues.

— Around 8:40 a.m., a U.S. law enforcement official and the uncle of the suspects confirm that the name of the slain suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother.

— Around 10:20 a.m., Connecticut State Police say a grey Honda CRV believed to be linked to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been recovered in Boston.

— Around 10:35 a.m., the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth says it closed its campus and ordered an evacuation after confirming that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is registered there. The school says it closed the campus “out of an abundance of caution” as the search continued.

— Around 11:30 a.m., Massachusetts State Police explain that the brothers suspected in the bombings were in the Honda CRV when they carjacked the Mercedes SUV. For a while, each drove one of the two vehicles, but then ditched the Honda and reunited in the Mercedes.

— Around 12:35 p.m., state police in Watertown say officers are searching door-to-door but still have not found the bombing suspect.

•••

BOSTON (CP) — The NHL and major league baseball postponed their games in Boston because of the manhunt for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

The Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins had cancelled their morning skates because of the manhunt before the NHL announced it was postponing the contest tentatively for Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.

As a result, Pittsburgh’s home game against Buffalo on Saturday night will now be played Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox were scheduled to host the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park on Friday night.

No makeup information was provided for the baseball contest.

The bombings Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 180.

Police identified two suspects but one was killed during a shootout with police and the other was being sought during a massive manhunt across the city and surrounding areas.

••••

Father of Boston blasts suspects says son is ’true angel’

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing described his fugitive son as a smart and accomplished “angel” in an anguished interview in which he claimed they were set up.

Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued.

“My son is a true angel,” the elder Tsarnaev said. He said his son was “an intelligent boy” who was studying medicine.

“We expected him to come here on holidays,” he said.

“They were set up, they were set up!” he exclaimed. “I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan.”

The younger Tsarnaev gave few clues as to his inner life on his profile on Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, though he did include websites about Islam among his favourites.

The family’s origins are in Chechnya, the mostly Muslim Russian republic where separatist rebels fought two full-scale wars with Russian forces since 1994.

A spokesman for Chechnya’s leader said the family left Chechnya long ago and went to Central Asia, then moved to Dagestan, a Muslim republic adjacent to Chechnya that has been the site of a sporadic insurgency for more than a decade.

During the family’s brief stay in Dagestan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the provincial capital. The principal’s secretary at School No. 1, Irina Bandurina, told the AP that Tsarnaev left for the U.S. in March 2002.

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the two suspects, said he was not sure whether someone had radicalized them, but said it would be wrong to blame their father.

“It’s not my brother, who just moved back to Russia, who spent his life bringing bread to that table, fixing cars,” Tsarni said at his house in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Tsarni said his brother had little influence over his sons.

•••

U.S. transfixed by hunt for surviving brother suspected in marathon blast

WASHINGTON (The Canadian Press) — Americans were on the edge of their seats Friday as heavily armed police swarmed the streets of Boston and its suburbs on the hunt for one of two Russian-born Chechen brothers suspected in the bloody Boston Marathon bombings.

The developments transfixed a nation in the midst of a dreadful week as they watched the unprecedented spectacle of a beloved, bustling American city locked down and at a standstill amid a high-profile manhunt.

In overnight dramatics that seemed lifted from a Hollywood action movie, the brothers allegedly killed a security guard at a downtown university, hurled explosives at police during a rollicking car chase into the Boston suburbs and then engaged in a gun battle that left one of them dead and the other at large.

The city and its suburbs were completely locked down by Friday morning as police continued to pursue 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, died in a hail of gunfire while reportedly challenging police in suburban Watertown.

Details about the two brothers, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2002, emerged at a fast and furious pace as family members and associates spoke openly to news media while social media disclosed a treasure trove of personal details.

An array of relatives, including their Toronto aunt, came forward to either fiercely defend the brothers or bitterly condemn them.

An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, was asked outside his Maryland home what would have provoked his nephews. “Being losers,” he replied angrily.

“Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in, ask forgiveness from these people,” Tsarni said to news cameras congregated on his driveway. “You brought shame on our family, the entire Chechnya people. You put this shame on our entire ethnicity.”

The brothers’ father — Anzor Tsarnaev, now in Russia — also urged his surviving son to give himself up, but warned the U.S. that “all hell will break loose” if he’s killed.

He told ABC News he spoke to his sons earlier this week, after the blasts at the famed Boston Marathon killed three people and injured more than 160.

“We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them,” Anzor Tsarnaev said from Russia. He said his sons reassured him, saying: “Everything is good, Daddy. Everything is very good.”

He added: “If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame. Someone, some organization is out to get them.”

Their New Jersey sister, meantime, said she was shocked.

“They were great people. I never would have expected it,” Alina Tsarnaev told the New Jersey Star-Ledger outside her home. “They are smart — I don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

The brothers were from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya in southern Russia, and initial reports suggest they were adrift after their parents returned to Russia.

Tamerlan, a boxer, was the subject of a photo essay entitled “Will Box For Passport” taken before he competed at National Golden Gloves competition in Salt Lake City in 2010.

“I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them,” he said, according to the caption on one of the photos.

Chechens are Russians by citizenship but not by nationality. Famously tough fighters, they complain of frequent discrimination against them by Russians.

Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994. The conflicts kicked off an Islamic insurgency in the region.

On his page on Vkontatke — the Russian-language equivalent of Facebook — Dzhokar Tsarnaev tells a joke.

“A car is driving down a street. In it are a Chechen, an Ingush and a Dagestani. Question: Who’s behind the wheel? Answer: a cop.”

By most accounts, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, an avid wrestler, was more popular than his older brother and had a network of friends. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student on the University of Massachusetts’ Dartmouth campus, and had a dorm room there.

Two students told CBS News that they’d seen him on campus this week. The school was evacuated on Friday as police descended upon the campus to search Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s room.

By noon on Friday, a sea of law enforcement officers had also surrounded the Cambridge, Mass., home where the brothers grew up and where Tamerlan still resided. Police said they feared it could be booby-trapped with explosives and were preparing to conduct a controlled explosion.

Subways and buses were shut down while Amtrak service to Boston was halted. Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emerson University were all closed and students were told to stay inside.

Tips about the identity of the brothers began pouring into the FBI soon after the agency released their images publicly, officials said.

Within hours, authorities say the Tsarnaev brothers had robbed a convenience store and gunned down MIT police officer Sean Collier, 26, as he sat in his cruiser at 10:20 p.m. Collier had not drawn his weapon.

The brothers then hijacked a Mercedes SUV, holding the driver captive for a half-hour while they reportedly tried to use his cash card to get money from three bank machines. They managed to withdraw $800 at one ATM.

The man was released unharmed at a gas station in Cambridge, sources said. As the suspects sped in his car toward Watertown, police gave chase as explosive devices were tossed at them out the window.

•••

Boston Marathon bomb suspect travelled to Russia, was out of the US for six months, sources say

WASHINGTON — Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to Russia last year and returned to the U.S. six months later, government officials told The Associated Press.

Investigators believe that Tsarneaev and his brother Dzhokhar are responsible for the deadly Boston Marathon attack that killed three people and wounded more than 180 others. The 26-year-old Tsarnaev died in a police shootout overnight. Dzhokhar is still being sought.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they couldn’t talk publicly about an investigation in progress. Tsarnaev travelled from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, according to one of the officials.

The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which neighbours the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles said. There are no known ties at this point to Chechen extremist groups, one of the officials said.

The uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects urged one of his nephews to turn himself in Friday, saying he had brought shame to the family and the entire Chechnyan ethnicity.

“Yes, we’re ashamed. They’re the children of my brother,” Ruslan Tsarni told a throng of reporters outside his home in Montgomery Village, Md.

The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said.

His brother, a 19-year-old college student who was dubbed Suspect No. 2, escaped. He was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

“Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,” Tsarni said.

Tsarni called his nephews “losers” and said his family had not seen them since December 2005. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade.

Tsarni said his brother left the U.S. and he had not talked to him since 2009.

Chechnya has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings.

Tsarni said vehemently that Chechnya had nothing to do with the attack. He said his nephews had struggled to settle themselves in the U.S. and ended up “thereby just hating everyone.”

•••

(Earlier story)

WATERTOWN, Mass. — The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer and hurled explosives at police in a car chase and gun battle overnight that left one of them dead and his brother on the loose, authorities said Friday as thousands of officers swarmed the streets in a manhunt that all but paralyzed the Boston area.

The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His brother, a 19-year-old college student who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 and was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line — escaped.

The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the unfolding case.

Authorities in Boston suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt for Suspect No. 2 went on. Businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.

“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”

In Cambridge, Bryce Acosta, 24, came out of his home with his hands up.

“I had like 30 FBI guys come storm my house with assault rifles,” he said. They yelled, “Is anybody in there?” and began searching his house and an adjacent shed, leaving after about 10 minutes.

Authorities gave no details on how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escaped, but said he may have been in a Honda CRV that was found later in the morning in Boston.

The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and instantly raising the spectre of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Authorities have shed no light on the motive for the attack and have said it is unclear whether it was the work of domestic or international terrorists or someone else entirely with an unknown agenda.

The endgame — at least for Suspect No. 1 — came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them. Tips came pouring in to the FBI immediately, but exactly how authorities managed to close in on the two was not immediately disclosed.

The men’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the brothers travelled here together from the Russian region near Chechnya.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the school said. The campus closed down along with other colleges around the Boston area.

Their father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is “a true angel.”

He said his son was studying medicine. “He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here,” the father said.

The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had awarded a $2,500 scholarship to Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who was listed as a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA star Patrick Ewing.

The images released by the FBI depict the two young men walking one behind the other near the marathon’s finish line. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said Suspect No. 2 in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions.

Authorities said surveillance tape recorded late Thursday showed Suspect No. 2 during a robbery of a convenience store in Cambridge, near the campus of MIT, where a university police officer — 26-year-old Sean Collier — was shot to death while responding to a report of a disturbance.

From there, authorities said, the two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured.

Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police figured out the carjackers were the marathon bombing suspects in part because of what they said to the carjacking victim. Procopio did not elaborate.

The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was severely wounded, authorities said.

Doctors at a Boston hospital where Tamerlan Tsarnaev died said they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds.

Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo, 25, was waiting for a bus that was to evacuate her and others from their neighbourhood.

She said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded “like it was right next to my head ... and shook the whole house.” She was looking at the front door when a bullet came through the side paneling. SWAT team officers were running all over her yard, she said.

“It was very scary,” she said. “There are two bullet holes in the side of my house and by the front door there is another.”

Christine Yajko said she heard two loud explosions and gunfire. She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.

“It was on the street, right near our kitchen window,” she said.

In the past, insurgents from Chechnya and neighbouring restive provinces in the Caucasus have been involved in terror attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.

Those raids included one in Moscow in 2002 in which a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 captors. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from the effects of the gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 hostage-taking raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan, where they took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.

Insurgents from Chechnya and other regions also have launched a long series of bombings in Moscow and other cities in Russia.

•••

BOSTON — Key moments related to the search for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, based on reports from the Middlesex County district attorney, Massachusetts State Police and Boston police.

— At 5:10 p.m. Thursday, investigators of the bombings release photographs and video of two suspects. They ask for the public’s help in identifying the men.

— Around 10:20 p.m., shots are fired on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, just outside Boston.

— At 10:30 p.m., an MIT campus police officer who was responding to a disturbance is found shot multiple times in his vehicle, apparently in a confrontation with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. He is later pronounced dead.

— Shortly afterward, two armed men reportedly carjack a Mercedes SUV in Cambridge. A man who was in the vehicle is held for about a half hour and then released unharmed at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

— Police soon pursue the carjacked vehicle in Watertown, just west of Cambridge.

— Some kind of explosive devices are thrown from the vehicle in an apparent attempt to stop police. The carjackers and police exchange gunfire. A transit police officer is seriously injured. One suspect, later identified as Suspect No. 1 in the marathon bombings, is critically injured and later pronounced dead.

— Authorities launch a manhunt for the other suspect.

— Around 1 a.m. Friday, gunshots and explosions are heard in Watertown. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents converge on a Watertown neighbourhood. A helicopter circles overhead.

— Around 4:30 a.m., Massachusetts state and Boston police hold a short outdoor news briefing. They tell people living in that section of eastern Watertown to stay in their homes. They identify the carjackers as the same men suspected in the marathon bombings. Overnight, police also release a photograph of a man believed to be Suspect No. 2, apparently taken from store video earlier in the evening at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Cambridge. He is wearing a grey hoodie-style sweatshirt.

— Around 6:35 a.m., The Associated Press reports that the bomb suspects are from a Russian region near Chechnya and lived in the United States for at least a year.

— Around 6:45 a.m., The Associated Press identifies the surviving Boston bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, who has been living in Cambridge.

— Around 8 a.m. Boston’s police commissioner says all of Boston must stay in their homes as the search for the surviving suspect in the bombings continues.

— Around 8:40 a.m., a U.S. law enforcement official and the uncle of the suspects confirm that the name of the slain suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother.

••••

(Earlier story)

BOSTON — In May of 2011, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, then a senior at a prestigious high school, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge, Mass., to pursue higher education. Now, Tsarnaev is on the run, described as “armed and dangerous” and suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Two brothers, one now dead, one alive and at large. After hours of only grainy images of two men in baseball caps to go on, a portrait gradually started emerging Friday of the men suspected in the attack.

Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed during a violent night in Cambridge, had been living together on Norfolk Street in Cambridge. An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the men lived together near Boston and have been in the United States for about a decade. They came from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s page on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte says he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, graduating in 2011, the year he won the scholarship, which was celebrated with a reception at City Hall, according to a news release issued at the time. Before moving to the United States, he attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya. On the site, he describes himself as speaking Chechen as well as English and Russian. His world view is described as “Islam” and he says his personal goal is “career and money.”

Tsarnaev appeared in the video released by authorities on Thursday, identified as Suspect Number 2, striding down a sidewalk, unnoticed by spectators who were absorbed in the race. He followed Tamerlan by about 10 feet. He wore what appeared to be a grey hoodie under a dark jacket and pants, and a white baseball cap facing backward and pulled down haphazardly.

Tamerlan was stockier, in khaki pants, a light T-shirt, and a dark jacket. The brim of his baseball cap faced forward, and he may have been wearing sunglasses.

According to the website spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested for domestic violence in July 2009, after assaulting his girlfriend.

He was an amateur boxer, listed as a competitor in a National Golden Gloves competition in 2009.

••••

(Earlier story)

By Eileen Sullivan, Meghan Barr And Katie Zezima

The Associated Press — Watertown, Mass.

The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer and hurled explosives at police in a car chase and gun battle overnight that left one of them dead and his brother on the loose, authorities said Friday as thousands of officers swarmed the streets in a manhunt that all but paralyzed the Boston area.

The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and a family member as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed in a gun battle with police in Massachusetts overnight, officials said. His 19-year-old brother — dubbed as Suspect No. 2 and seen wearing a white, backwards baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line — escaped.

The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

In Boston, authorities suspended all mass transit and urged close to a million people in all of Boston and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as they searched for the remaining suspect, a man Businesses were asked not to open Friday. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.

“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”

The endgame — at least for Suspect No. 1 — came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the marathon finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them. Tips came pouring in to the FBI immediately but exactly how authorities managed to close in on the two young men was not immediately disclosed.

The mens’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the men lived together near Boston and have been in the United States for about a decade. They travelled here together from the Russian region near Chechnya.

The White House said President Barack Obama was being briefed on developments overnight by Lisa Monaco, his assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.

The suspects’ clashes with police began only a few hours after the FBI released photos and videos of the two young men, who were seen carrying backpacks as they mingled among marathon revelers. The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, and authorities revealed the images to enlist the public’s help finding the suspects.

The images released by the FBI depict two young men, each wearing a baseball cap, walking one behind the other near the finish line. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said the suspect in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions.

Authorities said surveillance tape recorded late Thursday showed the suspect known for the white hat during a robbery of a convenience store in Cambridge, near the campus of MIT, where a university police officer was killed while responding to a report of a disturbance, said State Police Col Timothy Alben. The officer died of multiple gunshot wounds.

From there, authorities say, the two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured.

The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was seriously injured during the chase, authorities said.

In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighbourhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

Watertown resident Christine Yajko said she was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. by a loud noise, began to walk to her kitchen and heard gunfire.

“I heard the explosion, so I stepped back from that area, then I went back out and heard a second one,” she said. “It was very loud. It shook the house a little.”

She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.

“It was on the street, right near our kitchen window,” she said.

Yajko said she never saw the suspect who was on the loose and didn’t realize the violence was related to the marathon bombings until she turned on the TV and began watching what was happening outside her side door.

State police spokesman David Procopio said, “The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers.”

Boston cab driver Imran Saif said he was standing on a street corner at a police barricade across from a diner when he heard an explosion.

“I heard a loud boom and then a rapid succession of pop, pop, pop,” he said. “It sounded like automatic weapons. And then I heard the second explosion.”

He said he could smell something burning and advanced to check it out but area residents at their windows yelled at him, “Hey, it’s gunfire! Don’t go that way!”

Doctors at a Boston hospital where a suspect in the marathon bombings was taken and later died are saying they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds.

MIT said right after the 10:30 p.m. shooting that police were sweeping the campus in Cambridge and urged people to remain indoors. They urged people urged to stay away from the Stata Center, a mixed-use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.

The suspects’ images were released hours after President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended an interfaith service in Boston to remember the dead and the wounded.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama saluted the resolve of the people of Boston and mocked the bombers as “these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build and think somehow that makes them important.”

“We will find you,” he warned.

In the past, insurgents from Chechnya and neighbouring restive provinces in the Caucasus have been involved in terror attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.

Those raids included a raid in Moscow in October 2002 in which a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 Chechen hostage-takers. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from effects of narcotic gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 hostage-taking raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan, where they took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.

Insurgents from Chechnya and other regions also have launched a long series of bombings in Moscow and other cities in Russia. An explosion at the international arrivals hall at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011 killed at least 31 people and wounded more than 140.

---

(Earlier story)

MOSCOW (AP) — Militants from Chechnya and other restive regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus have targeted Moscow and other areas with bombings and hostage-takings, but the allegations of involvement in the Boston Marathon explosions would mark the first time they had conducted a terror attack in the West.

The conflict in Chechnya began in 1994 as a separatist war, but quickly morphed into an Islamic insurgency whose adepts vow to carve out an independent Islamic state in the Caucasus.

Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after the first Chechen war, leaving it de-facto independent and largely lawless, but then rolled back three years later following apartment building explosions in Moscow and other cities blamed on the rebels.

Chechnya has stabilized under the steely grip of Kremlin-backed local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel whose forces were accused of massive rights abuses. But the Islamic insurgency has spread to neighbouring provinces, with Dagestan, sandwiched between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, becoming the epicenter of violence with militants launching daily attacks against police and other authorities.

Militants from Chechnya and neighbouring provinces have launched a long series of terror attacks in Russia, including a 2002 hostage-taking raid in Moscow’s theatre, in which 129 hostages died, a 2004 hostage-taking in a school in the southern city of Beslan that killed more than 330 people, and numerous bombings in Moscow and other cities.

In recent years, however, militants in Chechnya, Dagestan and other neighbouring provinces have largely refrained from attacks outside the Caucasus.

The allegations of the Caucasus men’s role in the Boston’s explosions would reinforce long-held claims by Russian officials that insurgents in the Caucasus have been linked to al-Qaida.

••••

(Earlier story)

One of two Boston Marathon bombing suspects dead; other ’here to kill,’ being sought: police

By Meghan Barr And Katie Zezima

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS— WATERTOWN, Mass.

Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said as the manhunt intensified for a young man described as a dangerous terrorist.

In Boston, still on edge over the attack on the marathon, and its western suburbs, authorities suspended mass transit and urged people to stay indoors as they searched for a man seen wearing a white baseball cap on surveillance footage from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who urged nearby residents to stay in their homes unless police are present. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”

Authorities urged residents in Watertown, Newton, Arlington, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge and the Allston-Brighton neighbourhoods of Boston to stay indoors. All mass transit was shut down, and businesses were asked not to open Friday. At least a quarter of a million people live in those suburbs. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.

All modes of public transportation were shut down, including buses, subways, trolleys, commuter rail and boats, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. CNN reports all public schools and colleges in Boston have been shut down and Amtrak trains will be prevented from leaving or entering the city.

The clashes with police began only a few hours after the FBI released photos and videos of the two young men, who were seen carrying backpacks as they mingled among marathon revelers. The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, and authorities revealed the images to enlist the public’s help finding the suspects.

The images released by the FBI depict two young men, each wearing a baseball cap, walking one behind the other near the finish line. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said the suspect in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions.

Authorities said surveillance tape recorded later Thursday showed the suspect known for the white hat during a robbery of a convenience store in Cambridge, near the campus of MIT, where a university police officer was killed while responding to a report of a disturbance, said State Police Col Timothy Alben. The officer died of multiple gunshot wounds.

From there, authorities say, two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured.

The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was seriously injured during the chase, authorities said.

In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighbourhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

Watertown resident Christine Yajko said she was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. by a loud noise, began to walk to her kitchen and heard gunfire.

“I heard the explosion, so I stepped back from that area, then I went back out and heard a second one,” she said. “It was very loud. It shook the house a little.”

She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.

“It was on the street, right near our kitchen window,” she said.

Yajko said she never saw the suspect who was on the loose and didn’t realize the violence was related to the marathon bombings until she turned on the TV and began watching what was happening outside her side door.

State police spokesman David Procopio said, “The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers.”

Boston cab driver Imran Saif said he was standing on a street corner at a police barricade across from a diner when he heard an explosion.

“I heard a loud boom and then a rapid succession of pop, pop, pop,” he said. “It sounded like automatic weapons. And then I heard the second explosion.”

He said he could smell something burning and advanced to check it out but area residents at their windows yelled at him, “Hey, it’s gunfire! Don’t go that way!”

Doctors at a Boston hospital where a suspect in the marathon bombings was taken and later died are saying they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds.

MIT said right after the 10:30 p.m. shooting that police were sweeping the campus in Cambridge and urged people to remain indoors. They urged people urged to stay away from the Stata Center, a mixed-use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.

The suspects’ images were released hours after President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended an interfaith service in Boston to remember the dead and the wounded.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama saluted the resolve of the people of Boston and mocked the bombers as “these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build and think somehow that makes them important.”

“We will find you,” he warned.

---

Earlier story

By Meghan Barr And Katie Zezima

The Associated Press — Watertown, Mass.

One of two suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon bombing is dead and a massive manhunt is underway for another, authorities said early Friday.

Residents of Watertown, a suburb just outside Boston, have been advised by police to keep their doors locked and not let anyone in.

“We believe this to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed David. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody.”

The Middlesex district attorney said the two men are suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer on campus late Thursday, then stealing a car at gunpoint and later releasing its driver unharmed. Hours earlier, police had released photos of the marathon bombing suspects and asked for the public’s help finding them. A new photo of the suspect on the loose was released later showing him in a grey-hooded sweatshirt. It was taken at a 7-Eleven store in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston.

The first images were released hours after President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended an interfaith service at a Roman Catholic cathedral in Boston to remember the bombing victims.

Authorities say the suspects threw explosives from the car as police followed it into Watertown. The suspects and police exchanged gunfire, and one of the suspects was critically injured and later died at a hospital while the other escaped.

The FBI said it was working with local authorities to determine what happened.

The MIT shooting on the Cambridge campus Thursday night was followed by reports of gunfire and explosions in Watertown, about 10 miles (16 kilometres) west of Boston.

The MIT officer had been responding to report of a disturbance Thursday night when he was shot multiple times, according to a statement from the Middlesex district attorney’s office and Cambridge police. It said there were no other victims.

In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighbourhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

State police spokesman David Procopio said, “The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police offi

HBG

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Quick question - 03/31/2015

A Corner Brook woman was upset recently when she had her seal skin purse confiscated by customs officials when entering the United States — she was unaware of a U.S. ban on seal product entering that country. Are you aware of the ban?